For the thinkers, artists and scholars of the Renaissance, antiquity was a major source of inspiration; it provided renewed modes of scholarship, led to corrections of received doctrine and proved a wellspring of new achievements in almost every area of human life. The 130 articles in this volume cover not only well known figures of the Renaissance such as Copernicus, Dürer, and Erasmus but also overall themes such as architecture, agriculture, economics, philosophy and philology as well as many others.

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A. Life and workThe Italian Humanist and philologist Laurentius V. (or della Valle; Vallensis) was probably born in 1406 at Rome, the son of a senior official at the papal Curia, and died on August 1, 1457, also at Rome. Because the University of Rome was closed at the time following the Sack of Rome, V. for the most part educated himself and taught himself the ancient languages, for which he was much admired. As a young man around 1430, he tried to enter the Curia, but the outspokenness of his campaign was excessive and he was rebuffed. The ensuing phase as professor of eloquence at Pavia (
c. 1431…

A. HistoryFounded around AD 600, V. by the High Middle Ages was the leading trading metropolis and political power in the eastern Mediterranean, once Genoa was extinguished as a rival in the War of Chioggia (1380). The city-state's close relations with the Byzantine Empire cooled after the sack of the Byzantine capital Constantinople by order of Doge Enrico Dandolo during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Following a last phase of expansion up to 1453 (the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople), V. lost i…

A. LifeAndreas V. was a Flemish physician of German background, and the best-known anatomist of the early modern period. Born at Brussels, probably on December 31, 1514 [17.28]; [19]; [21.105]; [15] (or: "1514 or 1515" [18.639]), he died in 1564 on the Greek island of Zakynthos (or Zante). V.' paternal family, surnamed Witing, came from Wesel in the Duchy of Cleves. The personal toponym 'de Wesalia' replaced the surname in the Flemish branch [17.21 f.]. V.' great-grandfather Johannes laid the foundations of the financial prosperity of subsequent generations, becomi…